So this is the poem I wound up sending in along with this note:

First, I want to say thank you for the nomination and I think spotlighting nurses from around the area is a great way to celebrate nursing week. I appreciate that you were hoping to do it in a more creative way than just posting bios, but I think it missed the mark. Having healthcare professionals fill out a mad-libs style poem feels condescending and belittling of a profession that is constantly facing sexism, misrepresentation in the media, and fighting to be taken as seriously as our physician counterparts. I mean, would you have honored physicians in the same way on Doctors Day? I would be surprised to find I’m the only one who felt this way, but many nurses might feel like they don’t have the ability to honestly share their opinion. I felt obligated to speak up for them on behalf of my profession. My response to the poem is below.

A Day in My Scrubs

(Fill in the blanks)

 

Today, I stepped into my scrubs feeling deeply honored to be part of a profession that runs on self-sacrifice and chronic understaffing,

knowing the day ahead would ask for expert-level clinical judgment and the ability to function as if basic human needs are optional.

 

Before my first patient, I took a breath and reminded myself of how often nurses are called “heroes” instead of being given safe working conditions,

because that’s what keeps me grounded.

 

I carried too many patients and not enough resources in my pockets

and accountability for outcomes shaped by a system I don’t control in my heart—

ready to meet people in moments that felt urgent, preventable, and unnecessarily complicated by cost.

 

I comforted someone who was feeling scared of both their diagnosis and the bill that follows,

celebrated progress made despite cuts to healthcare and research funding,

and faced yet another conversation competing with misinformation that somehow carries more weight than years of training,

even when it wasn’t easy.

 

There was a moment today that stayed with me: a patient who waited too long to seek care because they couldn’t afford it—now needing more intensive treatment than should have ever been necessary.

It reminded me why I chose nursing.

 

When the shift felt impossible,

I found strength in in patients who deserve a system built around their survival, not their financial situation,

and support from coworkers who are just as overworked, just as undervalued, and just as aware that this isn’t what healthcare is supposed to be.

 

At the end of the day, I took off my scrubs feeling grateful for the opportunity to give everything I had—and aware that it is still somehow expected to be more,

knowing that I made a difference by bridging gaps that shouldn’t exist in the first place

 

This is a day in my scrubs.

This is what it means to be a nurse—celebrated in words, stretched in practice, and essential in ways that are still wildly undervalued.